the first time I ever really understood
the power of visuals was the same night
that I knew I loved the girl I loved it
was our second date and after taking me
through this twisting odyssey of the
back streets of Seoul she took me to a
set of dark and dingy stairs and at the
bottom of these stairs was a bar but
before I could get into this bar there
was a large green door it was a large
steel green door and it had on it one of
those kind of latches you know the ones
are big enough just about to open two
eyeballs can look through maybe past
something like in a prison movie I
knocked on the door the latch opens how
many two waiting and then after three
four maybe five minutes the door Julie
opens and inside is the most wondrous
scene a 22 year old boy could ever hope
to see
faces faces of all ages and races
dancing dancing on the dance floor
dancing on the tables dancing on the
chairs dancing on the bar and the
amazing woman that had brought me to
this place took me by the hand and led
me out onto the dance floor but she kept
going past the dance floor past the bar
straight to the DJ booth and she picked
up from one of those small little pots
that’s next to the DJ a singular Sharpie
pen are we going to be doing music
requests yeah but first let’s leave a
memory that we were here so what she did
is she started on the table in front of
us to draw I mean it was a very simple
doodle a line drawing but for some
reason the image and I still can’t
understand to this day why she did it
the image that she decided to draw
News was me I mean it was undeniably me
it had my hair at the time my glasses at
the time my chin I mean there was no way
that I could plausibly deny that the
person that she was drawing was me and
after she was finished with her artwork
she handed me the pen
and she said it’s your turn what an
incredibly pressurized situation to put
a 22 year old boy under a 22 year old
boy who at that time is only influenced
by two things hormones and alcohol my
mind races and flashes back to when I
was 14 in our class and I remembered
nothing because I didn’t pay attention
when I was 14 in our class the smart
kids in art class did their history
homework but I did remember one thing
her MSN Messenger avatar remember Emma
Stone messenger no okay
her avatar was lazy cat 0 1 1 7 so given
this set of circumstances I did the only
thing I could
I drew a generic picture of a cat there
you can see it it’s three circles three
triangles and six or seven lines now
fortunately for me she found this funny
she laughed and really really luckily in
that moment the image that I drew said
more about me than my words ever could
have and more importantly the image that
she drew showed me how she saw me what
the two of us had done in this moment is
shown just a little bit of visual
creativity by getting the right image at
the right time we had had a strong
emotional effect on each other little
did I know that night that this
combination of right image at the right
moment would have a huge effect on my
career over a decade later I’m still
with that stay same amazing woman and
I’ve left behind a career as a technical
writer
I literally proof read manuals for
toilets and I now lead a team that
builds visuals for some of the largest
stages in the world stages where the
right visual at the right moment helps
an idea flourish and take off it’s an
amazing opportunity that I’ve been
afforded but it’s been while trying to
execute on this opportunity that I’ve
come across a concern you see we as a
people are obsessed with the literacy
rate politician after politician
stretching all the way back to the 1980s
has held up the literacy rate is some
kind of indication of their success but
what about visual literacy what about
learning how to read and write images
where are the mass teaching programs for
visual literacy google the term and you
will find underneath the Wikipedia entry
one page buried on the Toledo Museum of
Art website and while institutions like
the Toledo Museum of Art are fantastic
spaces where we can learn about the
knowledge and the power of images
attendance at institutions like these
has been steadily falling for the last
20 years across the US and most of
Europe meanwhile the world that we live
in today is more visual than ever before
yesterday 95 million images were
uploaded to Instagram earth burned down
Silicon Valley the biggest companies and
the brightest minds are engaged in a
battle for your attention and they know
that the way to win this battle is
visual you see it’s all to do with how
your brain works believe it or not you
are built to see the world
visually thirty percent of your brain is
dedicated to deciphering images that’s
larger than any other segment it’s why
cavemen did cave paintings it’s why road
signs are not written out in text
studies show that my chances of you
remembering the stuff that I’m saying
today increases by as much as 50% if I
can get right visual with the right
message and it’s this combination of
right visual right time right message
that people are already using to
manipulate you they using it to get you
to do things what things
take for example Netflix a company so
successful that they practically
invented the concept of binge watching
binge watching something
the folks at Netflix can affect how much
of a series you will watch based purely
off of the first image that they use
when you browse through the browsing
experience they’ve gotten so good at
doing this that they can adjust for your
age your gender your location your
cultural even your racial identity huh
so what who cares what’s the worst thing
that’s going to happen they’re going to
make me watch the Adam Sandler movie for
30 minutes it’s a disaster but it’s not
really the end of the world what if I
told you that the folks at Netflix had
found that the things that influence
your decisions of how much of a series
you’re going to watch are things like
faces and the expressions on those faces
and whether or not those faces belong to
people who are portraying actors who are
portraying villains or heroes I would
say that if a facial expression or an
archetype or even stereotyped or
stereotypical role is affecting how we
consume something it’s affecting how we
see the world and this combination of
right image right time right visual is
affecting more than just how you consume
popular culture in 2010 Facebook carried
out an experiment for the congressional
elections and they found that by
accompanying messages like this one
designed to provoke you to go out and
vote
by adding in images of your friends they
were able to inspire more than 340
thousand people to go out and vote who
otherwise would not have voted the
result of the 2010 congressional
elections the biggest swing in seat
since the 1930s Facebook admits that in
2016 over 10 million people were exposed
to images like this one the power that
these images are happening is not purely
down to the visual but we can clearly
see that the right image at the right
time or the wrong image at the right
time can literally change the world the
good news and there is good news the
good news is that you can effect a
change
people are already affecting a change
take for example Getty Images this is
the single biggest library for images
that people use in things like websites
newspapers publications anything for
commercial use and these images that you
can see along the bottom of the screen
is a timeline each one of these is the
most popular image in their library for
the search term woman this is the most
popular image from 2007 moving along to
2009 you can see that we’re going
further and further along until we get
to 2007 teens image remember these are
the most popular results for the search
term woman notice the portrayal
we’ve gone from a woman being someone
who lies placidly on a massage table
draped in nothing but a towel to someone
striding across a landscape fully
clothed she even has a hat on
the truly amazing thing about this is
this is not purely a reflection of the
change in demand
getti were able to effect this change by
doing things like partnering with sheryl
sandberg and creating things like the
leaning collection and what they did by
changing the by changing the supply they
were able to change the demand by
creating better pictures that portrayed
women in a better way they were able to
change the pictures that we used and
consumed remember it’s worked these are
the most popular images for those search
terms they affected a change it’s a
change that you can duplicate in your
own lives but where do we start David
there’s no huge mass learning program
for images I don’t know as much as Getty
Images now how am I supposed to do that
well I believe that the secret for how
we get better at visual literacy is the
same as how we traditionally thought
about getting better a conventional
literacy how do you get better with
words you read more you start by reading
so let’s start by reading let’s go to
art galleries and exhibitions it’s bad
enough that attendance at these places
is falling for the last two decades
what’s even worse
astha tist ‘ok so that the amount of
time you spend on each image is as low
as 17 seconds so let’s not just spend
more time appreciating images let’s
spend a lot more time appreciating
images I know that it’s not just down to
you we need the gallery exhibitors
curators and owners to improve what
they’re doing so if you’re listening out
there do it the last time I went to a
major Museum of Art the adult tour was
so pretentious that I switched my audio
guide to the kids one and I had a
wonderful time why because the art was
explained to me in simple terms I’m a
technical writer remember simple terms
that I could understand and with genuine
heartfelt enthusiasm
then once you’ve taken the time to go
out and read more visuals it’s time to
write more visuals stop outsourcing the
creation of your images to others where
to start
well Millennials you could start here
did you know Millennials in the room
that in your lifetime you are
statistically speaking going to take
25700 selfies in the last 12 months I’m
a millennial too in the last 12 months
we have spent 52 hours getting ready to
take selfies
that’s not sending the selfie that’s not
editing the selfie that’s preparing to
take it so if we’re going to spend that
much time why not spend a little bit
more of that time not just thinking does
my hair look good this is the right
angle for my beautiful bone structure
and thinking about how does this image
portray me how does this image portray
the other people in the picture how do I
want the people who are looking at this
to feel the second place where you can
spark your visual creativity is emojis
this is the first ever set of emojis
created in 1999 four pages remember
pages me Nina today there are over 300
300 emojis in popular use you know what
I love about emojis they help us
overcome boundaries take for example the
boundary of language my sister-in-law’s
English is terrible my Korean is not a
lot better but thanks to emojis we can
have a genuine heartfelt warm goodbye
this is a genuine transcript of a
conversation we had the last time I went
to see her in Korea and she dropped me
off at the airport and then I went
through customs the truly wonderful
thing about emojis is that the library
expands it expands based off of your
usage of them the more you use an emoji
the more likely it is to stay in the
library and the more likely similar
emojis are to come into the library it’s
how we’ve ended up with emojis like this
one
the last place where I challenge you to
spark your visual creativity is memes
memes are awesome they’re an awesome way
they’re like a gateway drug into visual
creativity why because they’re easy
someone else provides the image you just
add the message and the timing meme
generators are free to download and you
can start anywhere start with your
friends Facebook feeds I do it to them
all the time they hate me for it
but it’s good for my visual creativity
but before you dismiss memes
it’s just coincidentally not important
all right they’re funny but what are
they gonna do to the world consider this
this is a meme this is a meme that cost
people their lives this is a meme that
saved lives now I can’t guarantee you
that by going out into the world and
producing your own images you’re gonna
be any more successful either
financially socially however you want to
measure your success but I can say with
a fair degree of certainty that you’re
going to be better placed at
interpreting the images that are put in
front of you why they’re there why that
time why that face why that portrayal of
someone and how is it that the person
who put that message there wants me to
feel so do it go out make your own
images images are important too
important to outsource the creation of
them to other people and to effective
and powerful to consume them without due
care and attention your world is getting
more visual by the day and you have a
say in how it’s going to look thank you
[Applause]
the power of visuals was the same night
that I knew I loved the girl I loved it
was our second date and after taking me
through this twisting odyssey of the
back streets of Seoul she took me to a
set of dark and dingy stairs and at the
bottom of these stairs was a bar but
before I could get into this bar there
was a large green door it was a large
steel green door and it had on it one of
those kind of latches you know the ones
are big enough just about to open two
eyeballs can look through maybe past
something like in a prison movie I
knocked on the door the latch opens how
many two waiting and then after three
four maybe five minutes the door Julie
opens and inside is the most wondrous
scene a 22 year old boy could ever hope
to see
faces faces of all ages and races
dancing dancing on the dance floor
dancing on the tables dancing on the
chairs dancing on the bar and the
amazing woman that had brought me to
this place took me by the hand and led
me out onto the dance floor but she kept
going past the dance floor past the bar
straight to the DJ booth and she picked
up from one of those small little pots
that’s next to the DJ a singular Sharpie
pen are we going to be doing music
requests yeah but first let’s leave a
memory that we were here so what she did
is she started on the table in front of
us to draw I mean it was a very simple
doodle a line drawing but for some
reason the image and I still can’t
understand to this day why she did it
the image that she decided to draw
News was me I mean it was undeniably me
it had my hair at the time my glasses at
the time my chin I mean there was no way
that I could plausibly deny that the
person that she was drawing was me and
after she was finished with her artwork
she handed me the pen
and she said it’s your turn what an
incredibly pressurized situation to put
a 22 year old boy under a 22 year old
boy who at that time is only influenced
by two things hormones and alcohol my
mind races and flashes back to when I
was 14 in our class and I remembered
nothing because I didn’t pay attention
when I was 14 in our class the smart
kids in art class did their history
homework but I did remember one thing
her MSN Messenger avatar remember Emma
Stone messenger no okay
her avatar was lazy cat 0 1 1 7 so given
this set of circumstances I did the only
thing I could
I drew a generic picture of a cat there
you can see it it’s three circles three
triangles and six or seven lines now
fortunately for me she found this funny
she laughed and really really luckily in
that moment the image that I drew said
more about me than my words ever could
have and more importantly the image that
she drew showed me how she saw me what
the two of us had done in this moment is
shown just a little bit of visual
creativity by getting the right image at
the right time we had had a strong
emotional effect on each other little
did I know that night that this
combination of right image at the right
moment would have a huge effect on my
career over a decade later I’m still
with that stay same amazing woman and
I’ve left behind a career as a technical
writer
I literally proof read manuals for
toilets and I now lead a team that
builds visuals for some of the largest
stages in the world stages where the
right visual at the right moment helps
an idea flourish and take off it’s an
amazing opportunity that I’ve been
afforded but it’s been while trying to
execute on this opportunity that I’ve
come across a concern you see we as a
people are obsessed with the literacy
rate politician after politician
stretching all the way back to the 1980s
has held up the literacy rate is some
kind of indication of their success but
what about visual literacy what about
learning how to read and write images
where are the mass teaching programs for
visual literacy google the term and you
will find underneath the Wikipedia entry
one page buried on the Toledo Museum of
Art website and while institutions like
the Toledo Museum of Art are fantastic
spaces where we can learn about the
knowledge and the power of images
attendance at institutions like these
has been steadily falling for the last
20 years across the US and most of
Europe meanwhile the world that we live
in today is more visual than ever before
yesterday 95 million images were
uploaded to Instagram earth burned down
Silicon Valley the biggest companies and
the brightest minds are engaged in a
battle for your attention and they know
that the way to win this battle is
visual you see it’s all to do with how
your brain works believe it or not you
are built to see the world
visually thirty percent of your brain is
dedicated to deciphering images that’s
larger than any other segment it’s why
cavemen did cave paintings it’s why road
signs are not written out in text
studies show that my chances of you
remembering the stuff that I’m saying
today increases by as much as 50% if I
can get right visual with the right
message and it’s this combination of
right visual right time right message
that people are already using to
manipulate you they using it to get you
to do things what things
take for example Netflix a company so
successful that they practically
invented the concept of binge watching
binge watching something
the folks at Netflix can affect how much
of a series you will watch based purely
off of the first image that they use
when you browse through the browsing
experience they’ve gotten so good at
doing this that they can adjust for your
age your gender your location your
cultural even your racial identity huh
so what who cares what’s the worst thing
that’s going to happen they’re going to
make me watch the Adam Sandler movie for
30 minutes it’s a disaster but it’s not
really the end of the world what if I
told you that the folks at Netflix had
found that the things that influence
your decisions of how much of a series
you’re going to watch are things like
faces and the expressions on those faces
and whether or not those faces belong to
people who are portraying actors who are
portraying villains or heroes I would
say that if a facial expression or an
archetype or even stereotyped or
stereotypical role is affecting how we
consume something it’s affecting how we
see the world and this combination of
right image right time right visual is
affecting more than just how you consume
popular culture in 2010 Facebook carried
out an experiment for the congressional
elections and they found that by
accompanying messages like this one
designed to provoke you to go out and
vote
by adding in images of your friends they
were able to inspire more than 340
thousand people to go out and vote who
otherwise would not have voted the
result of the 2010 congressional
elections the biggest swing in seat
since the 1930s Facebook admits that in
2016 over 10 million people were exposed
to images like this one the power that
these images are happening is not purely
down to the visual but we can clearly
see that the right image at the right
time or the wrong image at the right
time can literally change the world the
good news and there is good news the
good news is that you can effect a
change
people are already affecting a change
take for example Getty Images this is
the single biggest library for images
that people use in things like websites
newspapers publications anything for
commercial use and these images that you
can see along the bottom of the screen
is a timeline each one of these is the
most popular image in their library for
the search term woman this is the most
popular image from 2007 moving along to
2009 you can see that we’re going
further and further along until we get
to 2007 teens image remember these are
the most popular results for the search
term woman notice the portrayal
we’ve gone from a woman being someone
who lies placidly on a massage table
draped in nothing but a towel to someone
striding across a landscape fully
clothed she even has a hat on
the truly amazing thing about this is
this is not purely a reflection of the
change in demand
getti were able to effect this change by
doing things like partnering with sheryl
sandberg and creating things like the
leaning collection and what they did by
changing the by changing the supply they
were able to change the demand by
creating better pictures that portrayed
women in a better way they were able to
change the pictures that we used and
consumed remember it’s worked these are
the most popular images for those search
terms they affected a change it’s a
change that you can duplicate in your
own lives but where do we start David
there’s no huge mass learning program
for images I don’t know as much as Getty
Images now how am I supposed to do that
well I believe that the secret for how
we get better at visual literacy is the
same as how we traditionally thought
about getting better a conventional
literacy how do you get better with
words you read more you start by reading
so let’s start by reading let’s go to
art galleries and exhibitions it’s bad
enough that attendance at these places
is falling for the last two decades
what’s even worse
astha tist ‘ok so that the amount of
time you spend on each image is as low
as 17 seconds so let’s not just spend
more time appreciating images let’s
spend a lot more time appreciating
images I know that it’s not just down to
you we need the gallery exhibitors
curators and owners to improve what
they’re doing so if you’re listening out
there do it the last time I went to a
major Museum of Art the adult tour was
so pretentious that I switched my audio
guide to the kids one and I had a
wonderful time why because the art was
explained to me in simple terms I’m a
technical writer remember simple terms
that I could understand and with genuine
heartfelt enthusiasm
then once you’ve taken the time to go
out and read more visuals it’s time to
write more visuals stop outsourcing the
creation of your images to others where
to start
well Millennials you could start here
did you know Millennials in the room
that in your lifetime you are
statistically speaking going to take
25700 selfies in the last 12 months I’m
a millennial too in the last 12 months
we have spent 52 hours getting ready to
take selfies
that’s not sending the selfie that’s not
editing the selfie that’s preparing to
take it so if we’re going to spend that
much time why not spend a little bit
more of that time not just thinking does
my hair look good this is the right
angle for my beautiful bone structure
and thinking about how does this image
portray me how does this image portray
the other people in the picture how do I
want the people who are looking at this
to feel the second place where you can
spark your visual creativity is emojis
this is the first ever set of emojis
created in 1999 four pages remember
pages me Nina today there are over 300
300 emojis in popular use you know what
I love about emojis they help us
overcome boundaries take for example the
boundary of language my sister-in-law’s
English is terrible my Korean is not a
lot better but thanks to emojis we can
have a genuine heartfelt warm goodbye
this is a genuine transcript of a
conversation we had the last time I went
to see her in Korea and she dropped me
off at the airport and then I went
through customs the truly wonderful
thing about emojis is that the library
expands it expands based off of your
usage of them the more you use an emoji
the more likely it is to stay in the
library and the more likely similar
emojis are to come into the library it’s
how we’ve ended up with emojis like this
one
the last place where I challenge you to
spark your visual creativity is memes
memes are awesome they’re an awesome way
they’re like a gateway drug into visual
creativity why because they’re easy
someone else provides the image you just
add the message and the timing meme
generators are free to download and you
can start anywhere start with your
friends Facebook feeds I do it to them
all the time they hate me for it
but it’s good for my visual creativity
but before you dismiss memes
it’s just coincidentally not important
all right they’re funny but what are
they gonna do to the world consider this
this is a meme this is a meme that cost
people their lives this is a meme that
saved lives now I can’t guarantee you
that by going out into the world and
producing your own images you’re gonna
be any more successful either
financially socially however you want to
measure your success but I can say with
a fair degree of certainty that you’re
going to be better placed at
interpreting the images that are put in
front of you why they’re there why that
time why that face why that portrayal of
someone and how is it that the person
who put that message there wants me to
feel so do it go out make your own
images images are important too
important to outsource the creation of
them to other people and to effective
and powerful to consume them without due
care and attention your world is getting
more visual by the day and you have a
say in how it’s going to look thank you
[Applause]
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